How to Convert Sylius Into A Mobile App

In light of the growing trend of smartphone shopping, it has become crucial for businesses to optimize their online stores for mobile devices. This involves converting your Sylius store into a mobile app.

The popularity of mobile commerce is rapidly increasing, as more individuals are choosing to shop on their smartphones. If you're still prioritizing desktop platforms, you're neglecting a significant portion of your customer base.

While developing a fully customized native app may be costly, you can use a Sylius mobile app builder to create a feature-rich and high-quality mobile app for your Sylius store at a minimal investment.

Continue reading to learn how to convert your Sylius site into a mobile app.

Why You Need a Mobile App

Mobile constitutes more than 72% of the overall market share in ecommerce, experiencing a growth from slightly above 52% within a span of five years.

This aligns with the overall trend of mobile internet usage, which leans more towards mobile with each passing year. Mobile currently holds over 50% of the market share in comparison to desktop and tablet.

What's even more noteworthy, 15% of Americans currently rely solely on smartphones to access the internet. This implies that they exclusively use their mobile devices for internet browsing. This signifies the future of ecommerce, where customers are not just mobile-first but mobile-only.

Simply optimizing your website for mobile is a starting point, but it falls short. Mobile applications offer a superior user experience, resulting in improvements in various vital metrics, such as:

 
• Improved conversion rates
 
• Higher average order value
 
• Increased number of products viewed per session

Additional data indicates that users of ecommerce mobile apps are twice as likely to revisit the store within a 30-day period compared to those using mobile browsers.

Mobile applications also provide the advantage of mobile push notifications, which, on average, have open rates of 20% and click-through rates of 28%.

Apps also provide you with an excellent tool to cultivate and work with loyal, returning customers.

Is it absolutely necessary to transform your Sylius store into a mobile app? Maybe not. However, incorporating a Sylius mobile app can bring significant advantages to your business.

Can You Create Mobile Apps for Sylius?

Creating a mobile app directly from Sylius is not possible. Sylius is specifically designed for web-based stores. To develop a mobile app using Sylius, you'll require additional tools, such as:

1. A third-party app builder specifically for Sylius to bridge the gap and create a mobile app.
2. A technology-enabled service that can transform your Sylius store into a mobile app.
3. A team of developers to build your app for Android and iOS

Can I Turn My Sylius Store into an App?

You have various methods to transform a Sylius store into a mobile app, as mentioned above.

However, it's recommended that most store owners steer clear of the third option, which involves engaging developers to create native apps. The primary rationale behind this is the significant cost associated with mobile app development. Developing a native app alone can range from $30,000 to $150,000. And remember, this cost only applies to one operating system. To launch apps for both Android and iOS (which is highly recommended), you'll need to double this expenditure.

The process of app development is time-consuming, intricate, and costly from the outset. It becomes even more complex when developers have to build an API and establish a connection between the back end of your apps and your Sylius store.

Considering the budget constraints, it's highly likely that you may not have the financial resources for such an endeavor. And that's without taking into account the annual maintenance costs required to keep your app up and running.

The Recurring Cost of Having an App

Majority of people don't realize the ongoing costs involved in launching an app. The maintenance and upkeep, such as OS updates, Sylius updates, bug fixes, and adding new features, can amount to at least 15-20% of the initial cost every year.

In fact, it could be even higher. David Cost, VP of Marketing at Rainbow Apparel, delved into this extensively during their app launch and discovered that the annual cost could reach up to a million dollars.

"If we had unlimited time and money, we would probably opt for a custom native app, but that would cost us half a million to a million dollars annually to maintain."

David Cost, VP of Marketing, Rainbow Apparel

Let's take a conservative estimate of $150,000 to develop apps for both mobile platforms. The cautious estimate for updates and maintenance amounts to $30,000 per year.

For most store owners, this is simply too much to invest. Not to mention the added complexity and hassle of managing multiple platforms instead of just focusing on your website. It triples the amount of work required whenever you want to make changes to your site, unnecessarily complicating your workflow.

The Best Way to Turn Your Sylius Store into an App

The ideal choice is to transform your Sylius store into an app using a third-party mobile app builder.

With a Sylius mobile app builder, you can transform your existing Sylius website into a mobile app that closely resembles a native app. This app can be downloaded and installed on users' mobile devices.

Skilled mobile app builders offer a mobile app that provides around 90-95% of the features found in a native app, but at a lower cost and with fewer complications. However, not all available options are suitable for creating high-traffic, professional mobile apps that enhance your brand's image.

How to Convert Your Sylius Site Into an App

If you're a major brand with a big budget at your disposal – like Nike, Target, or Zara, for instance – you may choose to employ individuals to develop your shopping app from scratch.

If you're not, MobiLoud is undoubtedly the top choice for creating an app. It's easy, cost-effective, and quick. On top of that, maintaining your app is much more budget-friendly and simpler in the long run.

Here's how it works, broken down step-by-step.

Step One: Preview Your App or Get a Free Consultation

You can begin in one of two ways.

1. You can configure a free preview of what your website will look like as an app, in the MobiLoud builder
2. Or, get on a free discussion call with one of our app specialists to chat about your project and get an overall look of how the process will go.

In either case, you’ll see that 90% of the work to create your app is already done, as long as your site is already optimized for mobile.

If you need assistance optimizing your site, let us know and we'll be happy to help! This is a critical step to make the remainder of the process as effortless as possible.

Step Two: Work With Our Team to Build Your App

When you're ready to begin the building process, go ahead and sign up to MobiLoud. Our array of plans all come with a 60-day money-back guarantee, and there's no obligation for a long-term commitment.

Once you've signed up, our team will collaborate with you to configure and shape your app. Remember that the majority of the groundwork has already been completed. You won't need to start from scratch; just a few adjustments to give it that native app look and feel.

Upon approval of the design, we'll take over the technical aspect. Coding and technical know-how won't be necessary on your part, as we'll handle all of it.

If you prefer a more hands-off approach, our team can oversee the entire process from beginning to end. Our comprehensive full-service package covers everything needed to configure, design, and publish your app, allowing you to remain completely hands-off.

Step Three: Prepare for Launch

Once app is developed, it's time to prepare for its grand launch to the public. It's crucial to have a solid launch strategy in place to entice users to download your creation.

We offer various resources to enhance your app store descriptions, create captivating launch announcements for your website and email subscribers, generate attention-grabbing press releases, and much more. You can also take advantage of extra features at no additional cost, such as clever app banners and exclusive discounts within the app to motivate your existing customers to make purchases.

Step Four: Launch and Submit Your App to the App Stores

We'll then launch your apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

The process of submitting apps to these stores is famously challenging, particularly for first-time app owners and developers. However, we have extensive experience and expertise in this area, having gone through the process countless times.

Our team takes charge of the entire app submission process with Apple and Google. We guarantee a 100% app approval rate and will handle multiple submissions if required, providing recommendations and implementing any necessary modifications.

You can sit back and enjoy a hands-off experience!

Once your listings are live, you can officially start generating downloads and enjoy all the benefits of having your own Sylius mobile app.

Wrapping Up – Why You Should Use MobiLoud to Convert Your Sylius Store into a Mobile App

The mobile era is in full swing. Most of your current revenue likely comes from mobile, and if not, it will soon become the primary source.

Merely having a mobile-optimized website for your Sylius store is not enough to fully capitalize on your mobile users. To maximize your revenue potential, offering your own branded app is a wise idea.

Transforming your Sylius store into a mobile app is easier than ever, provided you approach it correctly. Instead of spending thousands of dollars (or more!) on mobile developers, MobiLoud offers an accessible and hassle-free solution.

Here are some of the key advantages of using MobiLoud's Sylius app builder:

 
• It comes at a fraction of the cost of custom app development.
 
• You can launch polished, top-notch apps in under a month.
 
• Your apps will retain all the fantastic features of your website, including product collections, payment gateways, plugins, tools, themes, and more.
 
• Syncing happens seamlessly across web, Android, and iOS platforms. Any modifications you make on your site will immediately reflect in your apps.
 
• You no longer need to fret about submitting your apps to the app stores – we guarantee approval.
 
• Our team will guide you every step of the way, taking care of all the heavy lifting so you can focus on other aspects.

This user-friendly, code-free app builder empowers you to launch your own shopping apps, placing your Sylius store among the top brands in the app stores.

Contact us now to discover more about how we can assist you in launching an app for your Sylius store. Schedule a free, personalized demo and let one of our app experts guide you through the entire process.